Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Pour Toujours Ce Grand Pré Mal Fleuri Par L’automne

Forever This Large Meadow And Its Evil Autumn Flowers

Five years, seven months ago

Louis had been raised all of his life with one constant, unrelenting reminder: Good things never just fall into someone’s lap. Good things are worked for. Good things take skill, and commitment, and concentration, and even then they aren’t guaranteed until you walk the extra mile. And even more often…? The extra things still get away.

Him, though. He was the one exception, the day he fell into Louis’ life.

Tripped, more like, actually. The toe of his boot had caught a crack in the sidewalk, sending him near flying into Louis, open cans of paint falling everywhere, a surprised, ‘oops’ slipping from his lips, leaving the two of them (Louis, mostly) covered in thick, glossy acrylic, staring at one another with wide eyes. The stranger had fallen directly into Louis, Louis supporting him at the elbows and cradling his forearms to his chest. He had looked like he may have been about to cry.

Instead, he laughed. Even through the splatters of paint, Louis could see the way his cheeks were turning pink, and the embarrassed crinkle of his eyebrows as he shook his head, fumbling to push himself properly upright. Louis specifically remembers thinking ‘He has a laugh that breathes life into fairies.’ (Thoughts like that didn’t belong to Louis Tomlinson, and he was profusely embarrassed of it ever having occurred to him, afterwards.) The stranger went to start talking, Louis could see an apology forming on his lips, and for some stupid, ridiculous reason, Louis didn’t want to hear it.
An apology sounded too final, somehow. Like he’d get an apology, an excuse, an address for a dry cleaning bill, and he’d be on his way. He absolutely damn well couldn’t have that. Some ridiculous, unasked for instinct had him craving just a moment, a minute, a breath longer with the boy. Just because.

So, Louis beat him to the punch.

“Hi,” he murmured, helping the man right himself. He’d brushed himself off, then, as if somehow flicking his hands over his shirt was going to rid him of the cold paint running down it. It’s ridiculous, to the both of them, and again the stranger laughs.

Louis vows, then, to do whatever he can to hear that laugh again. Over, and over, if he’s able.

He quirks a brow, before stifling a smile, and holding out his hand, “I’m Louis. I reckon you owe me a new shirt.”

The other had pressed his lips into a small grin, shaking Louis’ outstretched hand, “Harry. I probably owe you more than a shirt, mate.”

Louis had snorted, at that, “Suppose you’re right. You’ve made a right mess, haven’t you? Are you always this clumsy?”

Harry winced, “I’d love to say no, but I’m a terrible liar. My klutziness is a curse. My burden to bear.”

Louis grinned wider. The sun was warming his skin, and his smile didn’t ache, and Louis felt light. Louis never forgot that. Not as time passed, and canvases were created and destroyed, and fights were fought, and tears were shed, and love was shared, and kisses were exchanged, did Louis ever forget that first moment. That first moment of conversation, when the world gained color Louis hadn’t even realized was missing, and Louis stopped wondering what it was like to go from Kansas to the land of Oz. Louis never fucking dared to forget the moment he met Harry Styles.

What a shame that it was Harry he had had the misfortune of meeting.

Part One

Chapter One — ‘So It Goes’ Mac Miller

“My hands been counting’ money, and it’s hard to be the boss, but somebody gotta do it (it gets so exhausting).”

One year, six months ago

Louis gets it. He does. Of course he does. He’s been tucked away in this same studio often enough to know how easy it is to lose track of time. Even with a massive window, spreading wall to wall, and floor to ceiling, looking out upon London’s sprawling landscape, it’s easy to forget that the sun rising and setting is an indication of time passing. It’s as if, somehow, Harry’s casted a spell over the room, ensuring that all within are to leave their worries at the door, and relax into the studio that he’s made his own.

Louis teases him, sometimes. Reminds him that the studio technically belongs to him, but they both know it’s not true. When Louis had gifted Harry the room, after they’d moved in together, it’d been a blank canvas. White walls, and wood paneled flooring, and a small closet in the corner. Harry had been the one to bring it to life. He got rid of the closet door, and replaced it with one covered in his own sketches and doodles. The walls slowly filled with murals. One wall became dedicated to a collage of news articles that Harry was a fan of. (The prince getting married. A fashion article he liked. Commentary on the philosophies of Plutarch. Anything that catches his eye. He paints over it, eventually. A profile of Bowie, and another of Immanuel Kant, and another of Allen Ginsburg. So much versatility, all the time.)

He buys absurd amounts rugs, insisting over and over, “You want to be comfortable, don’t you? Who wants to be creative when they’re walking on a cold floor, Louis? No one, that’s who.” A plush couch ended up pushed up against the wall with soft blankets thrown over the back. (They were replaced constantly, though, as they were too often damaged by paint.) Pillows stay strewn around, constantly, and a wooden stool was always present, seated in front of an easel that endlessly cycled through canvases.

Louis’ lovely, beautiful artist, with an eye for interior design. Go figure.

The room slowly filled to the brim with energy, and love, and Louis gets it. It’s easy to lose track of time. But he’s dozing on the couch, now, even after a strong cup of coffee, and a glance at his phone confirms that it’s far too late to be awake, even for Harry.

He’s stretched out on the couch, pillow propping his head up just barely, and he blinks away the blurriness in his eyes.

“We should go to bed, baby,” he murmurs, eyes already slipping shut again. God, he’s tired, but it’s hard to sleep alone, these days. He always rests best with Harry’s body keeping him warm. He can rarely manage to relax into slumber without him anymore. Harry’s noncommittal, distracted hum pulls at Louis’ attention, again, and he peeks an eye open, turning his head to find Harry.

The boy is hidden behind a canvas, though, angled so that he can look past it on occasion, at Louis, and the sight has Louis’ brow quirking. “What’re you working on?” he questions suspiciously, and a smile tips Harry’s lips up.

“You.”

The word is simple, soft, and Louis feels his heart melt. He’s so gone for him. It’s embarrassing, the way Harry’s softened him up. He never expected it. Love wasn’t meant to be compatible with him, and yet it’s as if Harry was brought to him by the universe. His perfect balance. His unconditional better half. Created just for him, it seems.

“Thought we talked about you painting me, no? I’m not the right subject for your work,” Louis complains, sitting himself up, muscles aching.

“You’re my muse, haven’t you learned that, yet? You’re always the right subject,” Harry argues, predictable as ever.

Louis lets out a small grumble before pushing himself off the couch, earning a sound of complaint from Harry that he’s happy to ignore.

“S’time for bed, love,” he coos, rounding the easel to drape his arms over the artist’s shoulders, kissing the top of his head before setting his chin atop his curls. Absentmindedly, he runs one hand through Harry’s long hair, humming.
“Dunno how you manage to make me look like that,” he speaks, voice raspy from sleep.

“Like what?”
“Dunno,” Louis shrugs, “Beautiful.”

Harry drops his paint brush in a mug of water, taking Louis’ hand in his own as he leans back into his chest, the both of them surveying the half-finished piece of artwork before them.

Louis is painted in acrylic, stretched out on the couch, his face peaceful, body at ease. A white light emanates from behind the sofa, lighting Louis up, and the faintest ring of a halo rests just above his head, hidden in the bright light. Stupid. He’s certainly no angel. (Harry paints him as one, often. Promises that he paints the pieces of Louis that the man can’t see himself. Promises that someday, Louis will be able to identify the beauty from the paintings within himself. Louis thinks it’s horse shit, but he’ll never say that to Harry.)

Harry squeezes his hand, “You are beautiful. It’s always a pleasure to paint you.”

Louis scoffs, leaning down to brush his lips against Harry’s shoulder, “Shut up. Come to bed.”

Harry lets a whine of distaste issue from his lips, tilting his chin up to find Louis’ gaze with his own. Louis could fall into his eyes, he thinks. Bury himself in the emerald that he finds there, “Come to bed,” he repeats, softly, and he can see the fight crumble in Harry.

The boy lets out a sleepy sigh, before nodding, earning a pleased smile from Louis, “I’ll meet you in twenty. Let me clean up.”
Louis takes his leave, going to their room to change and fall into bed. Their room is beautiful. Large, and lavish, and everything that Louis finds comfort in. His and Harry’s safe haven.

Harry takes twenty five minutes — Louis counts — but eventually he does find his way into bed with Louis. He immediately tucks into his boyfriend, one leg hooking over Louis’ as he tucks his face into the crook of his neck, kissing over the skin there and settling in. Louis had one hand under his head, the other resting on his abdomen, and when Harry joins him he wraps the hand from his stomach around the boy, pulling him in close.

“Thanks for staying up with me,” Harry murmurs into his neck, sending tickles of heat down Louis’ spine.

Louis is already half asleep, as he replies, “‘Course. Someone has to convince you to sleep, eventually.”

Harry chuckles against his chest, and pulls himself closer. Louis can feel his smile.
“Shut up. Goodnight.”

“Night, Harry,” Louis whispers back, before falling into deep sleep, Harry tucked into his side, and a smile playing at his lips.

~~~

Now

There are some people who carry light on their shoulders. These are the sort of people who seem to have collected for themselves a piece of the sun, and hidden it away just under their skin. People who radiate the feeling of laughter, and the gentle warmth of love.

And then, there are people who’ve stollen thunderstorms, and trapped them in their chest. And those people…? Those are the ones who have brains made of static, with finger tips painted red, their breath like fire. They’re the kind that make women cross the street, and men curl their hands into tight fists with white knuckles.

Harry Styles is the former. Harry Styles’ chest is home to a garden of roses of varying color, and  his fingertips glow in the dark. He drags brightness into every room he enters, as though carrying the sun on a string like a balloon, and he’s so good that it’s unavoidable. His warmth enters every available persons system, and takes ages to fade away. The joy that radiates from Harry finds a home in every passing strangers chest, and lives there for days. Even Louis felt it, upon first meeting him. Louis Tomlinson, a man often characterized as hard, unmoving, and petrifying by his peers, softened instantly the moment he met Harry Styles, in a way he’d never before experienced. He felt like a man who had been freezing for years stepping into the warmth of raw sunlight for the first time.

Louis has since immortalized the feeling of Harry’s joy, injecting it infinitely into his blood stream, so he may never forget it.

But right now? He is very, very, very much the latter. He is the person with a storm trapped inside his chest. He is the man that children cross the street for.

Louis stands amidst the wreckage of his home, his safe haven, and can do very little more than breathe heavily. He’s aware of vague details. Zayn is off to his left, just behind him, muscles taut with tension, heading a group of five men, looking downright terrified of Louis. (Such tension is foreign in this house, ever since Harry took it as home.) Zayn’s hand’s are raised, glock clutched between them, as though someone may jump out at any time and attack. Louis appreciates the effort, but it’s painfully clear that no one will be popping out. The people who created such destruction are long gone, and Louis has nothing to show for it, save the mess they left behind.

Still, he doesn’t focus on much of it. Not on the overturned bedside table, or the scattered papers, or the bed with its sheets strewn across the room. Louis seems unable to move his gaze from the wardrobe, with its doors thrown open, clothing scattered, and a burst of blood across the inside of the door, as though someone had been slammed into it, nose broken.

Louis can almost see him hiding in there, cowered into the corner, hands shaking, breath stuttering, as he cramped away from the door, holding his breath, praying he won’t be found. The image makes Louis feel sick, and he squeezes his eyes tightly shut, inhaling sharply, banishing it from his mind’s eye.

“Tell me again,” his voice is rough with emotion, emotion not often shown in front of his men, and he’s grateful that it’s Zayn who speaks, rather than one of the other five men standing around. Someone he trusts.

“There’s nothing more to tell, Louis,” he speaks, and Louis instantly knows he should correct him. Whether or not they may have a private friendship, in front of Louis’ men he’s always to be addressed as ‘sir,’ or any other similar title. And yet…? It’s not Zayn’s lack of formality, but instead the sympathy in his voice, that makes Louis whirl around, fire in his eyes, blood burning beneath his skin.

“What the fuck does that mean, Zayn?” He can see the fear that instantly ripples through the room, but the accused never wavers, only meets Louis’ gaze with his own made of steel.

“We’ve told you ten times over, boss. No one knows anything more than what we’ve already reported. He texted for help, and we were on location in four minutes. You came in less than a minute after us.”

That’s the worst part, isn’t it? Louis wasn’t fast enough. Wasn’t fast enough to get to his boy.

And now Harry’s been taken, and Louis may never breathe properly again.

He’s moving without thought, then, so breathless, so fueled by the fire raging in his bloodstream that he whirls around, hitting the wall hard enough that the plaster caves in, leaving a hole. Louis pulls back, knuckles stinging, sure to bruise, and hits the wall again, this time with the side of his fist. And again. And again. There’s no form to his hits, no skill to his fury. He’s not hitting to damage, as much as he’s wrecking to create chaos. There is no simplicity, no cleanliness, no sense of ease in a room without Harry, and spotless walls don’t deserve to counter otherwise.

By the time Louis is turning back around, facing Zayn again, his men are expecting there to be a calm, not unlike the silence that follows a storm. But what they find is the eyes of a madman, so lost within his grief and anger that he may be gone forever.

Louis is across the room in a a split second, shoving at Zayn’s shoulders. The man, to his credit, knows better than to fight back, simply letting the force of the shove push him back a couple of steps. Always the eye of the storm, Zayn was. The only one to ever make sense.

“Fuck you,” Louis spits, and he’s not even sure why. Zayn didn’t do shit. But in this moment, he feels like the reason. Everyone in this suffocating room feels like the reason and Louis has half a mind to put a bullet through the temple of every living soul in this house, just to make a statement. Just to hand to the world a slice of the pain he’s feeling. Of the fury storming in his stomach, the heartache slicing his chest in half, and concaving his lungs.

Harry. Harry. Harry.

“Louis-“ Zayn starts, but Louis doesn’t give him a chance to finish whatever sentiment he may be about to express.

“Fuck,” Louis hits, now, swinging at Zayn’s jaw with speed and force that reminds the other men in this room why Louis terrifies anyone he comes across. Why Louis runs the people he does, and lives with wealth the way he does, and rules with the respect, and fear that he does. Louis’ body writhes with skill that makes men fall to their knees in blind fear, and his eyes hold a wrath that not even God himself would raise his gaze to meet, “You.” Zayn was already halfway to the floor from the last hit, and Louis caught him under the arm before he could land, and slams the butt of his palm hard into his nose, hard enough to leave blood trailing across the floor. He’ll feel guilty for that, later.

Maybe.

He drops Zayn.

Louis senses someone at his back before he feels the hand on his shoulder, and his next movements are all at once. He spins, elbow coming up to clip the man behind him on the chin, sending his head snapping backward as he stumbles back with a cry. It’s Ryan, or Riley, or some name like that. Louis doesn’t care. Doesn’t matter. He was an idiot, if he thought he had the right to get that close to his boss, let alone touch him.
“Touch me again and I’ll scoop your eyes out with a goddamned spoon for fun the next time I get bored,” he spits, and everyone takes a quick step away from him. He hadn’t noticed the way they’d all edged closer, as if to stop him from harming anyone further.
(As if to catch him, if he were to fall.)
“Why are you still fucking here? The fuck am I paying you for? To stare as if you’ve not even got the brains to walk and chew gum at the same bloody time?” Louis’d never felt this hot, never had red tinge the outer edge of his vision the way it does now. He wants to light the world on fire. “They can’t be fucking far, can they? Do something, start fucking moving. Or I’ll take off your useless fucking feet at the goddamned ankles. Go.” There’s a flurry of movement in the room, all at once, and quickly enough it leaves Louis in the middle of his bedroom, Zayn at his feet, groaning as he comes to consciousness, and his own heart bleeding on the floor, shriveling into a black mass for all the world to see.

|*|

The worst part about loss is that life goes on. It’s not fair. Not fucking fair that the world continues spinning when all Louis wants is to scream until his lungs leak blood. But the world continues turning, and Louis doesn't dare let his weakness show, not when the political integrity of all that he takes pride in is threatening to turn inside out of its own accord. Harry would chastise him for saying as much, lecture him on the importance of family, and loyalty, and acknowledging one’s own mental health for the sake of those that he is loyal to. Those he calls family.

Louis can hear him in the back of his head, always, desperate to force Louis to do things as he would.

“Louis, if you let others run your life forever, you’ll never take the wheel back. You have to step up, and take control. You’re better than a man who lets work rule his life, and never allows himself any fun, are you not? Now, get back in bed, and snog me until I can’t breathe.”

The memory makes Louis’ heart clench, and it takes everything in him to maintain an impassive face. He’s stood in his own dining room, standing in front of a wall of window, looking out across his backyard. The land extends for miles, and a flower bed lines a path that runs parallel to the window Louis stands at. Harry brought life to those flowers, and now they do nothing but put a bitter taste in Louis’ mouth.

Calvin is still talking, repeating details that have been reiterated over, and over, and over for nearly six months, now.

“We simply don’t have an explanation. They know our every move, and there is no avoiding them. Every move we make, they anticipate, and a leader hasn’t even been named. The french are — Well. For lack of a better term, sir, the french are revolutionizing. We may have had an attempt at gaining control, had you not diverted half of your mens efforts in attempt to form some kind of a useless search for-”

Calvin realizes his mistake the moment after he’s made it, and the room goes silent as Louis stiffens.

This used to be the hard part, for Louis. He was never hard enough for moments like these. Such sentiment rarely falls upon sympathetic ears, though, within the mafia, and Louis knew better than to pretend otherwise. Eventually, he assimilated, and now the anger that flashes through his eyes when someone has done wrong by him comes unaccompanied by guilt.

Still, there is an ugly truth to moments like these. They remind him that he was far too young, and far more underprepared than he ever expected himself to be when he’d taken this role.

He remembers, often, the first time in which he’d seen his own story from the eyes of an outsider, the words he had overheard being passed between two of his men on duty.

“His father got infected by a flesh-eating bacteria, you know? Killed him like that,” the man speaking — irish accent thick, nose fat, and teeth yellow — snapped his fingers to demonstrate just how quickly the disease had done its deed. Louis had flinched.

“He was too young to take over, I reckon. It’s sure to lose him any control he thinks he has. It’s a shame, innit? His father worked bloody hard to create what he did, and now it’s going to go to waste on his pansy of a son,” the irishman’s partner, a british bloke with a heavy cockney accent, replied, and it was then that Louis revealed his presence.

Both of the men lost their tongue’s, and all of the toes on their left foot.

It was the words that stuck with Louis, though, rather than the punishment.

Necrotizing fasciitis doesn’t kill like that, and it’s not nearly as graphic as its nickname of “flesh eating bacteria,” but the irishman wasn’t entirely wrong in his information. Louis’ father had contracted a bacteria. It’d been through an old, half healed wound no one had bothered to double check: a knife wound to the ribs. It’s said that the bacteria can be combatted with early detection, but Dan Tomlinson was far too prideful, far to stubborn, far too good at hiding his pain, and by the time he brought it to anyone’s attention, it had found its way into his lungs.

Dan was dead within a week, and Louis Tomlinson effectively took over as head of the British Empire’s Criminal Mafia, and it’s French counterpart. The change of power had been quick, and the transition had been rough, though Louis couldn’t blame anyone but himself for such a thing. He was young, only eighteen when Dan had passed, and such a young man handling business dealings between himself and men who had been in the business for longer than he’d even been alive…? The idea was laughable.

Louis, though, quickly proved that he was not, and he made himself known as someone not to be trifled with efficiently. His father’s inner circle was decimated. Louis had been uninterested in old-management, and those that he brought into his company were young, forward-thinking, and absolutely fucking ruthless.

It worked that way, for awhile. For a long while, even. Harry came in two years later, things slid smoothly together, and it wasn’t until nearly a year ago that turmoil began within the french quarter of Louis’ regime. He had anticipated such a thing, of course. Even with the significant amount of respect he had gained, there were sure to be dissenters who still turned their nose up at the idea of a now twenty-five year old male with so much power.

What Louis hadn’t anticipated was their ability to plan. Their attacks were targeted, and they always hit with a powerful force. Unpredictable, angry, and intelligent is a triple threat that has the ability to reign terror, and with Harry gone, unable to kiss away the stress of a day at work, Louis is high strung, anxious, and eager to find any way he may be able to reclaim his control with as much ease as possible.

Ease, though, is something that rarely comes to anyone with… Well, ease. And the longer Calvin drones on, the more aware of the hopelessness of the situation Louis becomes. This moment though, Calvin’s mistake, gives a grateful Louis the chance to cut the man off, and escape this hell of a meeting.

But first, he must make an important point.

Louis cleared his throat, folding his hands behind his back as he very, very slowly walked back to the head of the mahogany table that runs down the center of the room. Maps are spread across the table, papers strewn about, and half-drunk mugs of coffee and tea sat scattered, each of the ten men in the room having been periodically refilling their own cups. (Harry used to do that, on the rare occasion that he allowed Louis to bring work home. He’d flit from person to person, talking sweet, offering scones, and teas, and anything else someone may think to ask for. Always the thoughtful one, Harry was. Louis is nauseous with how much he misses him.) No one moves as Louis comes to a stop across from Calvin, whose hands had started to tremble slightly.

“You meant a useless search for Harry,” he said, voice calm.

Silence meets the statement, and he shouts, “Did you, or did you not mean Harry?” Anger licks at the back of his throat, and he slams his palm on the table hard. He notes, with a dull flicker of satisfaction, that Calvin jumps, and his eyes avert toward the table, unable to hold his superior’s gaze.

Louis lets a smirk flick the side of his mouth up, and he leans in, finger tips pressed against the table as he brings himself closer to the man.

“Tell me, Calvin, if such a search would feel so useless, if darling Leanna were in a similar predicament?” There it is. The hook that he can always find. That he makes sure he can find, for any one of his men. Knowing how to find the jugular, a weak spot, guarantee’s loyalty within ranks. The right amount of fear never fails to maintain control.

“If you think searching for him is useless, perhaps we should put her up for grabs, and see which of your enemies find her first, hm? Just to prove your point. The uselessness of the thing,” the threat lays across the flat of Louis’ tongue, spitting venom, and panic seems to take hold of the man before him as he realized the weight of the proposition Louis was posing.

“I don’t think that that would be necessary, sir. I understand your… point well,” Calvin speaks, and the emphasis that weighs on the word ‘point’ makes it clear that he understands it as a threat. A smile breaks across Louis’ face, and he stands, some tension leaking from the room as his men find it in them to relax.

“Brilliant. If any of you lot have something else to say about the matter, please, feel free to apply what I’ve just said to Calvin to yourselves. Otherwise, get out of my house. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Just like that, Louis’ closest inner circle scatters, clawing up their individual maps, and papers, and disappearing out the nearest door.

It’s an odd balance, keeping those ten people close, while still demanding respect. At times, Louis toes the line, and he worries he becomes too harsh. But moments like those command respect, and Zayn’s even reported that it often impresses the men, that he can be so… Cold. Makes them feel as though they have a leader who will do whatever it takes to keep his men, and business secure. From the inside out.

So why does Louis feel so fucking shitty? The answer greets Louis as he sits down, and Zayn falls into the seat next to him.

Not everyone scattered, then.

Zayn pushes a warm cup of tea towards him, and Louis accepts the offer grudgingly, pulling the mug towards him, and cradling the ceramic between his palms. (Louis used to hate Harry for doing that, holding the tea for warmth, rather than to drink. Used to tease him endlessly for it, and Harry would roll his eyes lazily, and bat his lashes at Louis, and hum, “You know, if you slowed down enough to appreciate the little things in life, you’d understand why a warm cup of tea in your hands can be so delicious once it’s gone cold.” It never made any sense to Louis, but Harry would always return to whatever he had in front of him — whether it be a painting, book, laptop, or meal — before Louis could ever ask for clarification.)

“It’s not useless,” Zayn spoke, and Louis nearly startled, having already half forgotten where he was. A lot of life was like that these days. Out of body. Disconnected. Disjointed.

“Are we sure of that, anymore?” Louis asks, and for a moment, he lets the desperation leak into his voice. He is desperate. And if anyone should know, it should be Zayn.

“If Harry were dead,” Zayn argues, “then the french would have made an effort to let us know. They’ve not made one attack that they haven’t flaunted, whether it be interrupting a small drug deal, or attacking a group of your men. Louis, if Harry were dead, we would know because they would tell us.”

The words are little consolation. Not dead doesn’t mean safe, or okay, and the thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth, one that burns, and when Louis finally meets Zayn’s eyes, he shakes his head.

The conversation is over. “Go home and get some sleep, Zayn. We’ve work to do in the morning.”

Chapter Two- ‘Burn’ (Ray LaMontagne)

“You leave me here bereaving from the words so hard and plain, saying the love that we had was just selfish and sad.”

One year six months ago

There was, in fact, a time in which Louis felt guilty for nights like these. For being the cause of the tenseness in Harry’s shoulders, and the crease between his brows. Now, though, Louis’ learned to forgive himself. After years of Harry running kisses down his scars, and rubbing pain out of his joints, Louis knows it gives Harry a sense of control. It’s comforting. He’s made it more than obvious that he’s not particularly fond of the danger that Louis puts himself in, but somehow the chance to fix him up at least gives Harry the chance to asses Louis. Decide that he’s alright, and safe, and well taken care of, no matter the injury.

That doesn’t mean Louis lets the boy stew in his own anxiety, though. He certainly lets him concentrate, in the beginning. Especially today. With a bullet lodged in his upper arm, Louis knows better than to distract Harry as he removes it, and sterilizes the wound, but it’s the stitches he never can sit through. He’s accustomed to the pain, doesn’t really notice the pinching of the needle as it knits his skin together, but sutures are always when Harry’s brows are furrowed the deepest. As if, now that the adrenaline has worn off from Louis’ initial arrival, he’s remembering how worried he is. How upset he is.

Louis always tries to remedy that. It drives Harry insane as he complains about needing Louis to sit still, whining, “Quit moving, before I poke you with this needle harder than I’m meant to, Tomlinson.”

Louis’ always been shit at doing what he’s told to do, and tonight is no different.

He’s sat on the kitchen counter, Harry in front of him, focused carefully, and Louis barely gets through the first stitch before he’s hooking his uninjured leg around Harry’s waist, pulling him closer. Harry’s head is bent, curls falling like a curtain around his face, and Louis stoops, brushing his lips over Harry’s shoulder, and up his neck, teasing.

“Quit it, Lou,” Harry mumbles, voice thick as he gives the man a little nudge in his stomach, but Louis goes on, unable to be deterred, moving to kiss up Harry’s jawline, to the soft spot below his earlobe, before he kisses behind it, softly, sweetly.

“Don’t sugar coat it, doc. D’you reckon I’m gonna make it?” he purrs, voice low and teasing as he speaks into Harry’s ear.

He hears Harry inhale through his teeth, shaking his head, “Shut up. Don’t joke like that.” His tone is serious, but Louis can hear the light lacing his words. He’s never managed to stay upset with Louis for long.

Louis lets out another hum, ducking in to kiss over his collarbones, now, nipping at his skin gently before saying, “Does that mean I’ll be living, then?”

Harry scoffs, rolling his eyes, and Louis lifts his head, nudging his nose into the boy’s cheek gently, a soft request to get Harry to look up at him, “Stop pouting. I’m fine, aren’t I?”

Harry lets out an annoyed sound, “Define fine, because coming home with bullet wounds and slices down your chest isn’t exactly fine. You’ll live another day, maybe. You may be a deadman walking without even realizing it.”

At that, Louis can’t help but laugh, shaking his head. The dramatics his boy can show off, when he wants to.

“C’mon, H,” he grins, and now he ducks in even closer, kissing just below Harry’s jaw so that he has no choice but to angle his face upwards, allowing Louis more room to explore and nip at his throat. Louis wraps his legs around his boy, pulling him closer between his legs as he smooths a hand through his curls. “See?” he murmurs into Harry’s skin, between soft kisses, “I’m just fine. Dead men can’t kiss, can they, baby?” he teases.

He pulls that line out, a lot. Dead men can’t kiss, followed by soft, gentle brushes of his lips against all of his soft spots. Touches like those always serve to distract Harry.

Harry huffs, but he doesn’t argue, and Louis finally reaches up, gripping the boy’s chin so that he can force him to meet his gaze. See Louis’ face. See the comfort, love, and trust there. “I’m fine, pretty. Swear it, yeah?”

Harry gives a reluctant nod of his head, bringing his hand up to cup Louis’ cheek, thumb running over his cheekbone. “Just wish you’d be more careful than this,” he admits, as he always does, in a soft whisper.

Louis responds by pressing his lips to Harry's. Harry leans into it, responding easily, and Louis wraps his spare hand around his back, pulling him in tighter.

“Tell me you’re going to be fine?”

Louis grins against his lips, nodding, “Gonna be fine, Styles. I always am. What kind of gentleman would leave his lover at home alone? Chivalry isn't dead. I’ve a lifetime to prove it to you. No plans on cutting that short, sweets.”

It seems to be enough for Harry, because when he returns to Louis’ wound, his forehead isn’t wrinkling, and theres’s a soft smile decorating his lips, and for a moment — despite the bullet pulled from Louis’ leg, and the stress of his job, and the anxiety coursing through the both of them — for just a moment, everything is right in the world.

~~~

Now

Five more weeks go by, and nothing changes. It drives Louis half mad, and he becomes something of a wreck. He stays in constant motion, seemingly unable to do much more than burn energy. He burns more than he intakes, though, and it starts to show. Weight begins falling off of him, and the dark circles under his eyes turn into something close to permanent. No one dares say anything to him about it (the last time someone had, ranks below him, he’d had the lad’s pinky cut off at the knuckle, and sold it for five quid.) He’s tired, but anger seems to leak from his pores, and anyone who comes into contact with him doesn’t dare underestimate the danger of his rage.

The french's attacks have gotten worse. Significantly worse, but the news that Zayn has brought him this morning is… more appalling than was anticipated.

Louis is sat at his desk, laptop open and glowing in front of him. He’d pulled it out in an attempt to prove Zayn wrong. To show him a thread of emails between he and his business partner, and instead sat staring at proof of Zayn’s report. The message sits opened, and unanswered, taunting Louis.

Mr. Tomlinson,

It is with respect for you that I write to inform you of my intentions to terminate all future and remaining business dealings with you, and your associates. After long consideration by myself and my partners, it has been deemed that your inability to protect both the people that work for you, and any products you may acquire from outside partners poses a threat not only to those who work for me, but also myself and my family. As we both know, Mr. Tomlinson, losing family is perhaps one of the largest threats of working within a business like ours, and I take this into heavy consideration when dealing with any matter in our line of work.

I’ve asked my assistant, Judas, to call your man Zayn to repeat as such to him, in case this message does not find you promptly. If you find a need for my business again, I recommend you reach out to the man by the name of Char Lefevre. He runs business out of France, and can connect you to me. I won’t receive any messages from you lightly, so if you take such measures, make sure it’s absolutely necessary.

Regards,

Thatcher Reynolds

Louis clears his throat, unsure of how long he’d been sitting there, staring quietly at his screen, reading the words over, and over, and over.

He clears his throat, “The French rebellion has chosen its leader, then? Char Lefevre. Is that what I’m to assume from this?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what seems to have happened, actually. We’ve numerous reports of his comings and goings,” Zayn steps forward, dropping a folder on Louis’ desk, and Louis opens it, flipping through the papers within. There are photos of a handsome man, with short cropped, curling hair, and dark eyes. He’s not short, but he certainly doesn’t look tall, and he dresses to make sure his thick muscles are visible, even when hidden by cloth. Louis instantly despises him.

“He has a large nose,” Louis comments casually, eyes scanning the reports. They read of his daily habits, consorts, food preferences, and how he takes his tea. Details easily collected by anyone trailing him, and of no use to Louis.

“You know this isn’t worth shit, Zayn. Right? A bunch of papers and photos telling me whether or not he has scones with his tea, and if he takes milk in his coffee?”

Zayn nods, apparently not finding it necessary to vocalize a response, and it has a flare of irritation working its way through Louis. He’s always on edge, now. Always half-prepared to take out someone’s eye. He can’t remember the last time he was completely without a weapon, and he’s starting to feel as though he’d walk lopsided without his daggers strapped to his thighs, his pistol tucked into his waistband.

It’s embarrassing, a bit, the way the loss of Harry has so obviously impacted him. He was once a man who worked completely independently. Took over the goddamned mafia at age eighteen, and made it look easy. But now…? Now, he relies on a curly haired, bright eyed lad who snuck his way into Louis’ life five years ago. Now he’s bloody codependent, and it makes him look weak. It makes him feel weak, and all he can ever think about is getting Harry back. Even amidst his own people in France rising against him.

Louis heaves a sigh, rubbing his temples with his fingers, and squeezing his eyes shut.

“They haven’t made a statement, then. To or for us about Lefevre, or even about appointing someone as leader,” he thinks aloud, jaw tight. “Which means… They aren’t quite ready to. For whatever reason, they haven’t openly made any attacks with his name on the front of it, which means…” Louis draws a blank. He’s not sure. He hasn’t a damn clue why the french would claim a leader without making sure that Louis is aware. Electing someone to head a rebellion is a moment of importance. It’s a declaration of battle, of a decision to secede. Why would a group of rebels who have managed to intelligently attack Louis, and thwart any attempt at infiltration make a mistake as absurd as forgetting to use the election of Char to their advantage?

Louis shakes his head, running a tired hand over his face. “I don’t know, Z. Something feels… Bad. About all of this. There’s something we’re missing,” he says quietly, brows furrowing as he reads the email again.

There’s something not sitting right. An instinct within Louis that has his stomach tightening. He’s always been good about that. About trusting his instinct when it nudges him towards distrust. But he’s not sure what it is that he’s finding untrustworthy.

Unless.

“Harry,” Louis speaks. Suddenly it makes too much sense. It makes so much sense, and Louis is already on his feet, pacing.

“What if they use Harry,” and there it is, that impending sense of doom that always sits on Louis’ chest, filling him with constant panic. “Maybe they’re— Char. Maybe they’re waiting to use Char against us, because they’re waiting to use Harry against me. Waiting to hurt Harry to get to me. That’s— Hell. That’s what I’d do. To make a statement. Announcing the leader of a rebellion with anyone’s death sets a precedent. Jesus, Zayn, what if—” Fuck. Fuck.

Louis’ pulse is going, and his heart is fucking pounding, and this isn’t. This is horrific. Horrific, and terrible, and Louis is so tired. He’s so bloody tired.

Louis runs a hand over his face again, and shakes his head.

“We need to get him on the phone. Start… God. I dunno. Negotiating,” and that’s. Louis can feel the shock radiating off of Zayn, at that.

“Louis, I don’t think showing weakness is in your best interest, right now. You’re losing business partners, and clients, and the last thing you need is to show a pressure point, that’s only going to expose you further to them.”

Louis flashes him a cutting glance, and it silences Zayn long enough for him to start talking, again.

“He may be able to pinpoint our attacks, which only means he’s either good at intelligence work, or — this is more likely, I’d imagine — he has someone keeping their eye on us, from the inside, though I can’t begin to fathom who would be stupid enough to make such a commitment. Either way, I’m more than confident it isn’t someone close enough to be aware of all of my clients, partnerships, and profits. We can still use that to our advantage. I just want to establish a line of contact with him, alright? See what he wants, and see how we can combat his demands, and anticipate his next move.”

Louis can see Zayn begin to argue again, recognizes the petulant look his his eyes, and Louis raises a hand to stop him, brows set stubbornly, gaze hard, “We have to start doing more than playing defensively, Zayn. I don’t want to hear whatever reasoning you have stating otherwise. Get me on a call with Char Lefevre, as soon as possible. Dismissed.”

Three days later, Zayn comes back with a phone number, a time, and a date.

|*|

Two weeks from the day of Louis’ request, he was sat in his office, eyeing the black rotary phone that sits on his desk. He’d bought it for dramatics, given it an active line for Harry’s amusement, and was now using it as a way of corresponding with Char. While Louis has already swore up and down it was because he didn’t want to give his business number to the rebellion’s leader, a small piece of him can’t help but admit it’s due to fear. He’s wracked with nerves, a deep piece of him suspecting this all to be a ruse. A phone call from Char being posed as a diplomatic discussion, while acting as a way of distracting Louis from the battlefront. No, he won’t be caught without his cell phone on him and available when things go wrong.

Worst of all, is that Char hasn’t advanced a single attack since scheduling this particular meeting. He’d called it ‘an act of good faith towards their impending partnership,’ but Louis can’t help but regard it as the quiet before the storm. He certainly has no intentions of striking up a partnership, and the fact that Char does indicates either an overabundance of confidence, or idiocy. Perhaps both. Still, Char has held true to his promise, and for the past eleven days all of Louis’ business transactions have gone smoothly and as planned, something that hasn’t happened consistently in months. Before the storm, or not, the calm is appreciated.

There has been little correspondence from Char since the date of the phone call was set, save an email he sent regarding his partner being conferenced into the call. Whether the term “partner” was used as one of a romantic or business connotation wasn’t clear, but there had been no reason to disagree with such a request. Louis hadn’t expected the call to be a private one, anyways. He himself had made sure to buy a second portable phone to connect to the landline, allowing Zayn to sit in on the conversation easily.

He’s sat, now, at five minutes to ten am with a cup of tea on a saucer sat in front of him, just beside the phone, across the desk from a stony faced Zayn. The tea is untouched, and he’s wearing the same clothes as the ones he put on yesterday morning, not yet having had the chance to change into something fresh after a night of no sleep. He’s meant to call Char at ten in the morning for a conversation about business, future intentions, and an established line of communication.

Louis waits until ten o’five before picking up the phone, and dialing the number Zayn had passed along to him.

The line rings twice before there’s a click indicating the call being picked up, and Louis waits.

“Mr. Tomlinson. It’s lovely to finally have the chance to speak with you,” Char speaks, and Louis finds himself illogically surprised by the man’s french accent. The man’s voice is gruff, and deep, but it’s the accent that’s shocking, abrasive, and Louis almost finds it in him to laugh.

Thankfully, he manages to hold his composure, and instead clears his throat, “Mr. Lefevre, I wish I could say the same.”
Char chuckles, “I’m sure you do, yes. Nonetheless, no offense is taken. I didn’t expect any less of a response from a man of your caliber. In fact, I think I would have been disappointed, had you said otherwise.”

“I’m not sure that desiring the ire of your targeted business partners is a practical approach within the business you’re dipping your toes into. There are plenty of men who would sooner kill you than take a call, as I have. I’d revise your plan of action, if I were you,” Louis replies, tone dry.

Char doesn’t match his tone, though, instead keeping his own light, and unbothered as he replies, “Well, of course! Live and let learn, is that not the saying? No need to worry about me, Mr. Tomlinson. I know how to treat all future partners with the respect they demand. You, though, truly ought to realize you don’t have any room to demand anything.”

Harry. He’s talking about Harry.

“You’ll find I always have room to demand,” Louis bluffs, knuckles white around the phone’s handle.

“No, I don’t think so, actually. In fact, I think you may be the easiest business associate I will ever strike a deal with.”

Louis scoffs, “You’ve been talking to the wrong people if that’s your honest impression of me.”

Char laughs now, loud and gleeful, nothing like his earlier titter, and an unexpected feeling of dread passes through Louis Tomlinson. There is something distinctly nasty about the french leader that makes Louis’ toes curl, and his stomach roil in disgust, though he can’t begin to imagine what it is that the other man must be capable of to earn such an instinctual reaction from Louis.

“Louis Tomlinson, I can assure you I have spoken to all of the right people,” Char assures, once his laughter has subsided, “In fact, I’m so sure of this that I don’t even feel the need to negotiate my terms with you. I’ll fax my contract over to your man, Zayn, now, and I expect it to be dated, and signed, by Sunday evening.”

Louis lets out a sound of bewilderment, and shoots Zayn an incredulous look.

“And what, pray tell, leads you to believe that I would sign anything that you asked for?” Louis demands.

The delight in Char Lefevre’s voice is obvious, as he says, “Dear, would you care to pitch in at this time?”

There’s a pause, in which Louis remembers ‘Oh, right. He said his partner was going to be on the call’ and then thinks ‘A significant other, if he’s using terms of endearment’ before the voice on the other line speaks.

“The fact of the matter is, Mr. Tomlinson,” the man starts, “Is that you have no move. You’ve been backed into a corner, and not only has half of your clientele been stolen, but the rest of it is in jeopardy. You have been showcased as weak, someone unfit to be a leader of the people, and our people, those of us in France, have been demanding change for years.

“Even more, is that you simply have nowhere else to go from here. You do not have a contact, plan, connection, idea, or even a cake recipe that Char and I are not fully aware of, and willing to use against you in this fight. We want to work with you, not against you. Don’t make this harder than it has to be. We only ask for sixty percent of your revenue coming in and out of France, and forty percent of all deals within the UK, and America. We both know such numbers are fair, considering how heavily you rely on the income and products that comes in and out of France, and they’re therefore non-negotiable,” almost as an after thought, Char’s partner adds, “And the power we hold over you certainly makes things a touch easier on us, as well, I’d say.”

The floor is no longer beneath Louis’ feet. His head is spinning, and his jaw is slack, and the look that Zayn is giving him is one so full of panic that it’s nearly comical.
Except, this isn’t funny at all. Rather, it’s a nightmare. A nightmare that Louis’ brain has never before been able to conceive because the idea alone is madness. Absurdity. It’s never even vaguely crossed his mind.

And yet…? There’s no question about it.

Louis knows that voice. Even with a French accent, rather than a British one, he knows that voice.

“Harry?”

He’s lost his cockiness in all of one breath, and it’s obvious from the broken way Louis speaks his name. Harry. Harry the painter. Harry the romantic. Harry the curly-haired. Harry the soft. Harry the dreamer. Harry the lover.

“It’s Matthias, actually. Harry’s the name I allowed you to call me in my… time spent with you.”

Harry the traitor.

Char lets out another laugh, another happy, easy laugh that sends shards of glass slicing through Louis’ chest, and he can’t— He can’t breathe.

“So you see, Mr. Tomlinson, I do business brilliantly. But my fiancé, here. He does action even better.  I’m the face and the spokesperson, but my lovely Matthias…? He’s the brains, of the operation. Knew exactly who we had to get to to get what we wanted. And how to get to you,” Char’s voice is venomous, and when he pauses, Louis knows he’s being made to stew in his own ugly, horrified thoughts.

He wonders, briefly, how Char and Matthias are positioned. If they’re at a desk not unlike Louis’ own, each on their separate phones, but still close, and with one another. Or if they’re somewhere more comfortable. In bed, or on the couch, Harry’s — Matthias’s — legs thrown over Char’s, who plays with his fiancé's curls idly as he speaks, ripping Louis’ heart into shreds and then stomping it into the dirt with nothing but a few sentences.

“Can I count on your signature, Mr. Tomlinson?” Matthias questions.
“You can count on a war on your door step, and your head on my fucking desk, Harry Styles,” Louis manages to bite out, before slamming the telephone back onto it’s base with so much force it’s a miracle it doesn’t break. It doesn’t occur for another thirty seconds that Louis has just threatened a man that doesn’t even exist. Harry Styles doesn’t exist.

Louis shatters.

|*|

Louis disappears into his office for three weeks, and no one dares to approach him. He’d told no one about what had happened. Not about Harry being French, nor his being planted as a spy within Louis’ life. He couldn’t admit that to his men, not when he was already holding them to such a high standard. To claim respect and generate fear amongst his people was an accomplishment that had not come about with ease, and to tell them about Harry’s betrayal would cast him as weak all over again. At some point, it’s likely to become popular knowledge, but until then, Louis chooses to bide his time. He swears Zayn to secrecy, shoos him from the office, and speaks no more.

He disappears, and for the first two weeks, he doesn’t even exist. He lays on the chaise lounge that resides in his office, pressed against the wall with a cashmere blanket wrapped around him. It smells like Harry, and it makes Louis nauseous, but he doesn’t bother moving. If he did, he’s not sure his legs would support him. Zayn tries to check on him, once, and the filthy curses that Louis spits are so vile that he doesn’t bother coming back, and Louis is grateful for it. He doesn’t have it in him to maintain conversation. He barely has it in him to keep breathing in and out.

For the first time in Louis’ life, he wallows. It’s a new experience, a weak one, and it’s something he never has allowed himself to do before now. It’s something he saw —sees— as pathetic, shameful, but now…? It’s all Louis can do. He barely eats, drinks only the necessary amount of water to survive (if that), and when he manages to sleep, he nightmares. Violent, terrible dreams that leave him waking up in tears, drenched in sweat and body pumping with adrenaline. So, he doesn’t sleep. Rather, he exists in this terrible, empty space between unconsciousness, and wakefulness. Never fully conscious, and never really asleep. As though he’s trying to swim through water, and instead he’s swimming through gelatin. Everything is slow, and tiring, and nonexistent.

He’s not sure what allows him to move, after those two weeks. Perhaps it's boredom, or impatience, or the overwhelming sense of responsibility he feels for putting his people in significant danger. Whatever it is, it builds up in his stomach for three days, acidic and fiery until, on day four, Louis finally moves.

He doesn’t leave the office, yet, and he doesn’t dare utter a word, but he moves, which, considering the last couple weeks, is a brilliant start. He works in a senseless haze of time, without sleep, without pause, and when he finally, finally steps out of his office for the first time in twenty one days, smelling and looking like absolute shit, he’s a new man.

The frenzy Louis goes into is one that is told as legend by the men and women of the mafia for decades to follow. It was a movement of its own, with Louis at the head of it. When he’d stepped out of his office, he did so as a colder, more ruthless leader, and he had a plan. Finally. Because, yes, he’d spent his last years with a man who doesn't exist, (Harryisn’trealHarryisn’trealHarryisn’treal) but that doesn’t mean he spent them alone, and while Matthias knows the ins and outs of Louis’ operation, Louis knows how to counter. He finally has an understanding of just how he’s had every move of his thwarted. Every action, decision, and idea has been countered by Matthias because he knows Louis. Every small bit of him. And that….? That’s Louis’ fault. That level of vulnerability should haver never been shared, no matter how much Louis had trusted Harry, and it’s his fault. His problem to fix.

So he makes sure to step out of his office with a plan, and he’s on the offense. The next long, arduous months are a series of calculated decisions, five counterattacks, and a painstaking amount of careful preparation. He’s overly cautious, and achingly detail-oriented, but he’s smart, and eventually things begin to turn in his favor.

Reports of frenchmen showing up in wrong pick up locations start to surface, and it’s the first sign of a semblance of hope. A sign that Louis has begun to mislead the french enough to gain a foot up on them, and the ball begins to roll. The french start to begin to deteriorate as Louis finally regains control of his product, and dealings. He manages to draw some partners of his back, (No one is thick enough to truly cut off a deal with the Tomlinson family, and with some carefully selected punishments of a few leaders, Louis is fearsome enough that old partners reach out to him, looking to mend broken business relationships. Thatcher Reynolds is the first to call.) and from there, things seem to fall into place of their own accord.

The text that Louis receives eight and a half months later is one sentence, with no signature attached:

“Don’t take any deals.”

Louis doesn’t know what it means, nor does he really care. He’s not one for taking outside opinions anymore, and he’s working on his own agenda. Four months after that, though, Louis gets a call from Char. Matthias isn’t on the line, and a new deal is offered, with lower numbers, and the word partnership thrown in, in exchange for power. Louis relishes the chance to tell Char to fuck himself, and he hangs up before Char can ask for much else. It’s not as satisfying as he would have hoped, but he certainly isn’t one to complain about the chance to cuss someone out. Especially when it’s Char.

It’s not until a few days pass that Louis remembers the message he’d received, and he finds the text to share with Zayn, asking him to run the phone number and find what he can. Of course, he finds nothing, but Louis hadn’t let himself expect much else. It could have been from anyone, of course. One of his people who want to have a say in the future of Louis’ career, or a frenchman wanting to get into good terms with Louis before they lose power all together.

Louis messages back a short “Who are you?” text that goes unanswered, and he doesn’t bother to follow up. He doesn’t care enough to. Whoever sent the text wants an in with the Powerful and Dangerous Louis Tomlinson, and any interaction that comes with even a chance of a double motive is one that Louis doesn’t care about. No more double edged swords.

He gives himself two more months of quietly halting Char’s plans before he truly unleashes his wrath. Blood rains from the sky, and Louis lands blows. Hard. He starts with the people he already knows betrayed him. Those of whom were once one of his own loyal followers. He has addresses for many of them, and Louis sends men to each of them, rounds every single one of them up. There’s no shame, no mercy for those insiders that betrayed him, and Louis personally cuts down anyone who stands in his way. Bodies build up, his fury grows, and within fourteen months of his first call with Char and Matthias, a war has been waged, and the french are crumbling, seemingly from the inside out. The structure of power that Matthias and Char had originally built begins to collapse, and frenchmen are running with their tail between their legs to beg Louis for forgiveness.

Louis isn’t a man lacking in any and all sense of mercy, and he grants about half of them his forgiveness. The other half he sends running for the hills, and not without scars to remind them who they’re running from.

Sixteen months in, and Char’s head is delivered without a body to Louis’ doorstep in a mahogany box with velvet lining.

Zayn smiles, and Louis hates it. He hates that someone else got the satisfaction of taking Char’s head off at the throat, and he hates that he doesn’t know who it was. Because, of course, the box came unmarked, without a name, or address, or any clue as to who could have accomplished such a thing.

From then on, everything falls back into place without a flaw. His command over the french empire is reinstated, and he cracks down hard, buckling the economy of his people in France, making sure those that followed Char and Matthias felt the repercussions of their choices. He goes looking for Matthias. Of course he does. The idea of doing otherwise is ludicrous, and he’s ultimately unable to resist the urge. He’s not sure what he would to do, if he were to find him, whether he wants to kill him, hurt him, or just… Cry to him is completely unknown, but Louis searches anyways, fueled by the need to confront him, to see him with his own two eyes and connect the idea of Matthias, with the body of Harry. He needs the confirmation. The moment of truth.

It doesn’t come. It takes searching, and bribing, and some hurting, but eventually Louis finds out that after the death of his fiancé, Matthias fell into mourning. Deeply depressed and fearing for his life, he fled into hiding, and successfully disappeared. No one had heard from him, or seen him in nearly two months. Louis doesn’t concede. He never would. Rather, he lies in wait.

He knows Matthias will have to resurface, sooner or later. It only makes sense. Whether or not Louis knew the man he lived with for years is irrelevant, when considering who he’s dealing with now. Now, Matthias has become the textbook example of someone searching for revenge, and as frustrating as it is, it’s also comforting. Matthias is someone who’s power hungry, and desperate. Power-hungry enough to spend years as an entirely different person, just to gain leverage over Louis. And now…? Now Matthias is mourning. Now he’s heartbroken, and lost without his life partner. His hunger for dominance and power, twisted with the depressed, hopeless state the death of Char has put him in…? His bloodlust is surely raging, as is his anger. Louis doesn’t have to know Matthias to know that much.

He himself has three weeks worth of being locked up in his own office as a testament of his understanding of the state that Matthias is likely in, right now.

It’s not in Louis’ nature to exhibit any form of patience. This situation with Matthias, though, is a special circumstance. So, wait he will.

Chapter Three - ‘I Fall to Pieces’ (Patsy Cline)

“You tell me to find someone else to love, someone who loves me too, the way you used to do.”

Three years, three months ago

Louis has always been one for impulsive decisions. He supposes that’s what makes him so good at his job, actually. His unpredictability. The emotions that go into anger. People know to tread carefully, and treat him with respect, because to do otherwise would be to put themselves at his mercy, without any warning. Without knowing what the punishment may be. No one wants that. But, with Harry, they fall into patterns. Harry is the one consistency in his life. His stability. Louis loves impulsive decisions, but he loves knowing he can rely on Harry even more.

Nights like these, though. They’re not stable. They’re a pattern, but they aren’t stable.

When Louis wakes up, it’s because Harry is writhing beside him. Which, all things considered, isn’t too bad. Too many nights Louis has woken up to Harry’s head bent over the toilet, vomiting until he has nothing to bring up anymore. Louis doesn’t know what the nightmares are about, and the one time he asked Harry had locked himself in his studio for two days, eating nothing. When he finally came out he was crying, and Louis had to hold him for hours before he calmed down.

So. Just writhing in bed? A bit anticlimactic compared to other nights. But maybe it’s because Louis caught the nightmare early this time.

Either way, he sits up instantly, pressing one hand to Harry’s sternum, the other cupping his cheek, “Hey,” he says, softly, not wanting to startle him awake, “Hey, wake up. You’re dreaming, it’s just a bad dream.”
It’s as if he can see Harry trying to wake himself up, trying to pull himself from the sludge of his nightmares, and when he finally does his eyes fly open, and his body jolts, shooting halfway upright as he grabs Louis’ wrist defensively, eyes wild, jaw clenched.

It takes a moment for him to remember where he is, who Louis is, and when he releases him Louis’ wrist hurts, though he doesn’t complain. They both breathe heavily, soaking in the silence for a moment, before a soft cry rips itself from Harry’s throat, and the boy collapses in on himself, pressing his face into his hands, his chest rising and falling quickly, sobs gaining momentum too quickly.

Louis’ seen this before. Can see the panic attack building within Harry, and without thought he’s slipping from bed, pulling a hoodie from the floor over himself, and walking around to Harry’s side, forcing him to sit up, and then stand.

“Come on, come on. Let’s go. Stand up,” he coaxes, as Harry lifts his head from his hands. His face is still distraught, broken, and it seems to split Louis’ chest into two. He snags the comforter off the bed — too big, far too big — and wraps it around Harry’s shoulders, before finding his hand, and tugging him forward. Louis guides Harry down the spiraling staircase and to the garage, snagging the keys to his Bentley off the hooks by the door and beeps his car open. He makes sure Harry is comfortable in the passenger seat before shutting the door on him, and sliding into the drivers seat himself.

He opens the garage door, and then they’re gone, pulling out and taking off. He’s gotten good at finding backroads out of the city, well paved streets soon turning into a long road that he can drive mindlessly on. The windows are rolled open, and Louis doesn’t speak. Doesn’t demand effort, or words from his boy. He just keeps him moving. Keeps the scenery blowing by Harry so that he doesn’t have to think, only stare off.

The silence rolling off of Harry isn’t an uncomfortable one. Instead it’s… hollow. Harry always has light radiating off of him, but now it’s conspicuously absent, leaving nothing but empty space behind. A void that Louis isn’t equipped to fill. Doesn’t even know how to fill. So he keeps driving, taking occasional glances over, but staying silent. In moment’s like these he can’t help but feel inadequate, unable to figure out whatever it is that Harry needs to find a semblance of peace.

By five thirty in the morning he’s exhausted, but some color has come back into Harry’s cheeks, finally. It’s another fifteen minutes before Harry, so quietly that Louis barely catches it, whispers, “We can go home, now. I’d like to go home. Please.”
Louis doesn’t question it. Only takes two right turns and heads in the opposite direction. They’re far from home, but that’s the point. To remove Harry, let him leave his thoughts, and come back to Louis when he’s ready. There’s soft music issuing from the car’s speakers, the Tchaikovsky disc that Harry had snuck into the car a bit ago, and Louis finally sees Harry tapping his forefinger on his knee as the notes play, some sliver of his energy coming back to him.

“Thank you,” Harry speaks, finally, finally, and Louis shakes his head, dismissing him.
“Don’t thank me.”
“I’m thankful.”

“You shouldn’t be. S’my role for you, innit? S’my job. Take care of you, just as you do me.”

A small whimper pulls from Harry’s throat with that, but Louis doesn’t have it in him to interpret it, so he stays silent.

Carefully, he reaches out, placing a hand on Harry’s thigh gently, and squeezing. “Coming back to me?” he begs, voice soft.

Harry reaches down, squeezing Louis’ fingers.

“I always come back to you, don’t I?”

~~~

Now

He’s running. His chest is burning, lungs screaming for the chance to take in more air, legs weak with exhaustion, and still he’s running. He’s not sure why, at first. Not sure if he’s running away, or towards, but he knows he can’t stop. To stop running is to suffer pain greater than any other, and the fear of such is enough to keep Louis going, without any particular goal in mind. It’s not until he sees him in the distance, a small lump of limbs and curly hair, that Louis understands that he’s running towards.

Towards Harry.

The boy is crumpled on the ground, curled on his side, with his cheek pressed into a pool of crimson blood that’s rapidly spreading around him, and it takes too long for Louis to get to him. By the time he skitters to a stop, chest heaving, eyes wild, hands numb, it’s too late. There’s a familiar stillness to Harry’s body, the way his chest remains flat, and his hands lay limp and still. Louis begs the universe to tell him he’s only making a mistake. Begs for some kind of miracle to occur, as he rolls Harry to his back. There’s a  gash across Harry’s stomach, long and deep, and if the wound itself did not reek of death itself, the way his eyes stare lifelessly past Louis would solidify the too-obvious fact alone.

All at once there’s a high-pitched keen pouring from his lips, his own chest seemingly emptying all of what it contains on the floor in front of him. Harry is there, still, dead, dead, dead, and Louis can’t feel his body anymore. Can’t breathe, can’t think, as his body shudders with grief, harsh sobs pulling from his chest. He’s not entirely sure if he’s still making noise or not, can’t tell if he’s crying, or just kneeling on the floor beside the man he loves, screaming into the void that surrounds him.

He knows he hurts. He hurts so, so badly, and eventually he ends up slumped over his own knees, knuckles white as he balls up Harry’s shirt and cries into his chest for what feels like hours.

He isn’t sure how long he’s there, but when he eventually manages to push himself off of Harry’s chest, he can feel exhaustion finally settling into his bones, forcing him to consider the idea of sleep. He sits himself back up, swiping tears from his eyes before allowing himself one last, final glance at Harry.

Except, Harry’s not there.

Rather, it’s him.

Louis’ body lays on the ground, eyes without light, chest without movement, stomach torn open, and Louis stares at his own body in confusion, numbness flooding his senses. What…? He notices, then, a tattoo on his left hand. A small cross, just below his thumb. Panic shoots through him, and he stumbles upwards, away from his body, nearly tripping over himself as he backs away until he bumps into something hard, painful, and cold. He tries to keep himself from turning around, tries to scream at himself not to spin, but he’s lost control of his body by now, and without his consent his body pivots to face the mirror behind him. It stretches forever in every direction, leaving Louis with no choice but to see himself.

To see Harry. His reflection.

It’s Harry.

He is Harry, except while he weeps, his reflection waves, showing off a pretty dagger, bloodied to the hilt. It’s with the resounding finality that only a nightmare can provide that Louis understands that it’s he who is responsible for the body on the floor.

Louis is responsible for Harry’s body.

Harry is the cause of Louis’.

Louis shoots up in bed, adrenaline pumping, cheeks wet, panting heavily as he fights to regain understanding of the world around him, begging for proper consciousness. Sometimes the worst part of the nightmares is waking up, and pushing back the disorientation. Trying to find up from down, and reality from dream state feels near impossible, and it takes long enough to wear Louis out, the same exhaustion that frequents his body every night settling back into his bones.

It takes him some time to register the sound of his phone ringing, and instant annoyance bolts through his body. He’ll cut out the tongue of whoever was thick enough to think it smart to call him at four thirty in the morning. (He won’t. He’s not a lunatic. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t tempting.)

The phone is lost in the tangle of blankets that surrounds Louis, and it takes a moment for him to fish it out, sliding his thumb across the bottom of his screen to accept the call without bothering to check the caller ID, “‘ello?”

There’s a beat of silence. Then.

Then, then, then.

“That’s funny.”

Shock radiates through Louis so fast he doesn’t even have time to get angry before he’s replying, “Funny?”

“Just- For some reason, I thought you’d sound different. Should’ve known that a voice I’d heard nearly every morning for five years wouldn’t be any different. And yet—” Harry clears his throat. “And yet, I still expected otherwise.”
There’s more silence, Louis unable to breathe evenly enough to speak a word, and there’s only breath being shared through the line for awhile before Harry speaks again, “Hi, Louis.”

And for no good reason whatsoever, Louis doesn’t tell him to fuck himself. Instead, he just murmurs a soft, breathless, “Hi.”

More silence. Again. So much fucking silence.

“What’s—” What’s wrong? That’s the question Louis wants to ask, first and foremost. What’s wrong? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night? Are you okay? Are you safe? What do you need? What can I do? The protective instinct that tightens Louis’ stomach — even after nearly a year and a half of hell raining upon him from above, commandeered by Harry — would make him sick, were he not so exhausted. But he is so exhausted, and it makes all the difference in the world. He’s tired. Too tired to muster up the revulsion, or rage.

He surrenders, instead, to the relief of Harry’s voice.

Matthias’s voice.

No. No. That’s Harry’s voice. No french accent, no hard edge. Soft, gentle, sleepy Harry.

Emotion seizes Louis’ throat, and he has to swallow harshly before he tries again, “How’d you get this number?”

“I… Leveraged some connections. Have a couple of contacts good with computers, and the right connections on the right sides,” Louis is sure he’s imagining the guilt in Harry’s voice. “Had to have someone else do the hacking bit, obviously. You know how shit I am with technology.”

Louis replies without thought, “Always the bloody worst, weren’t you? Could barely manage to film a video properly.” The fondness, the instinctual teasing nature to his reply is much more real than the guilty tone Louis is pretending he can hear in Harry’s voice.

Harry seems to recognize it, and again the two of them lapse into silence, both uncomfortably aware of how unprecedented such emotion was. Louis can’t remember the last time they were so uncomfortable with one another. Perhaps the tentative hours after their first fight holds some similarity, but even then, they weren’t like this. Not really. Because after an hour of stubbornly ignoring one another, Harry had been wrapping Louis up from behind, kissing over Louis’ shoulders and neck and apologizing over and over, despite the both of them knowing Louis was the one in the wrong. Louis paid him back with a blowie and an apology later, and that was that. Louis isn’t sure a blowjob and some snogging would properly bandage up this wound.

“I’m sorry,” Harry tries, again, “For— Ah. For calling this late. Without warning. Sorry.”

Louis scoffed, “Nearly let myself believe you were apologizing for the last six years of my life, just then. That’s funny, innit?”

Harry pauses, and it gives Louis a glimmer of satisfaction. He hopes he made him uncomfortable.

“S’pose so,” Harry replies, finally.
“Yeah. S’pose,” Louis doesn’t give him a chance to talk again, “Did you need something?” He’s waking up, finally. Properly. Enough to be curt. Less soft.

Harry, though. He’s still soft. Still gentle, fuzz around the edges of his voice. “No. No, I didn’t. I, um. I just wanted—”

A million possible ends to that sentence flash through Louis’ mind at once.  ‘I just wanted—,’ to prove that I can. Wanted to punish you for Char’s death. Wanted to mock you. Wanted to visit an old accomplishment. Wanted to threaten you with more. Wanted to mock you. Wanted—

“Just wanted to hear your voice.”

And that…? That makes Louis’ breath stutter, and there. There’s that familiar anger writhing in his gut, where it rightfully belongs.

“You don’t get to do that,” he spits, quickly, desperate to make an attack while he still has the taste of venom in his mouth. “You don’t get to be the one to call.”

Harry hesitates, and Louis can feel it, feel the boy’s desperation as he murmurs, “Lou.”

Louis understands. Instantly. The entire situation snaps into perspective, and Louis remembers. Of course.

The call, all at once, makes sense.

It gives Louis a lick of smugness, to realize that this. This piece of Harry. This was real. Louis still holds this. A vulnerability. A weakness.

“You still have them?”

Harry answers quickly, “Yeah. Yes.”

Louis nods, briefly forgetting they were speaking over the phone. He forces the swell of worry in his throat back. That’s not his job, anymore.

“What about?” he tries. Of course he tries, how could he resist?

Harry’s silence is deafening, giving Louis the same explanation as always. None at all.

Louis tries a different tactic, “Fine. Whatever. A different question, then. Why?”

“Why?” Harry parrots, and Louis is quite sure he’s stalling an answer.
“Yeah, why? Now seems as good a time as ever to ask, since I have you on the line. Why’d you do it? What the fuck did I ever do to you, to earn me that? This,” Louis doesn’t have to clarify what ‘this’ is, for them both to know what he’s talking about. The only thing he could be talking about. 

“S’not important,” Harry replies, and the nature of the answer is so maddening, that Louis actually laughs aloud.

“You’re joking, right?”

“It doesn’t matter now, Louis, that’s all. What’s done is done."
“What’s done is done?!” There. There’s the rage Louis has been searching for, back with full force, and it’s burning a fucking hole into his stomach. “The fuck do you mean what’s done is done? Do you have any idea how— You’ve taken so much, hurt me, my business, my livelihood, and your response to that is ‘What’s done is done’?”

The silence that Harry lets stretch between them only manages to infuriate Louis further, which serves as the only explanation for what Louis says next.

“I want to see you.”
“What?” Harry’s shock is evident in his voice, and Louis doesn’t blame him. He’s a bit taken aback by it, himself.

“I want to see you. You owe me that much, don’t you?” Louis isn’t sure why. Just as he was in the beginning, he’s absolutely clueless as to what this need to see Harry means. He doesn’t know what the point is, and yet…? He needs it. Whether it’s to connect the idea of Matthias to Harry’s face, and hands, and chest, and hair, and feet, or if it’s just to get some small form of vengeance, Louis isn’t sure. But he wants it. That much he knows.

That doesn’t mean he’s prepared for when Harry agrees.

|*|

They meet at a french restaurant, per Louis’ request. He thought it’d be ironic. A power move. But sitting amidst low lighting, in artfully arranged chairs, and too-expensive wines around him has him realizing his ‘power move’ was really more of an accidental set up for a romantic dinner date. The thought has a wave of revulsion rolling over him. The restaurant is called Heising, located in Berlin, Germany, and Louis had stared at the sign that advertised the building as much for just shy of ten minutes before he’d mustered up the courage to venture inside.

He’d not been stupid enough to come alone. He has men and women carefully planted in, and around, the restaurant. The pair stationed at the booth just inside the door had been the ones to notify him of Harry’s arrival, though they didn’t give much more information. Everyone Louis had on location today was a new hire, someone new enough that Harry had no chance of recognizing them. Their unfamiliar faces were a perk, but their lack of training wasn’t, and they aren’t yet quite intuitive enough to know what to look for when Harry walks in. They don’t know how to identify the loping walk that a man with experience hiding a gun has, nor do they have the ability to recognize and identify other plants within the restaurant. It’s hard not to see them as essentially useless, saved only by their unfamiliar faces, their ability to keep Louis informed, and their ease with a gun.

Louis had taken three sharp, harsh breaths before making his way into the restaurant, teeth gritted. And it had taken all of three seconds for him to spot Harry, dressed in a silk shirt with minimalist patterning, and no curls. No curls. He’d chopped his hair short, high and tight, a significant contrast to the usual mop of curls he’d always worn, and the difference is so striking  that Louis briefly questions how he’d recognized him with so much ease. (He’s always been able to do that, though. Never had any problem finding Harry amongst a room full of people. He gravitates to him off of instinct, whether he likes it or not.)

He forces his face to be impassive before setting forward, waving away a hostess before she can offer to help him, (He can’t speak german for shit, and he’d like to hold off on letting that be known for as long as he can.) and rounding the table Harry sits at, unceremoniously piling into the chair across from him. Harry seems to fumble for a moment, halfway out of his seat and unsure, before he just. Freezes. And stares at Louis.

There’s an uncomfortable silence, in which they both hold eye contact, Harry’s jaw a bit slack, and looking almost... vulnerable. Louis takes a beat to take him in. It’s hard, looking at him. So different, and yet so unchanged. Louis has been very well acquainted with this man’s every nuance for quite some time, now. The slope of his nose, the curve of his brows, the length of his fingers, the tattoos decorating his collarbones, and yet…? This isn’t Harry. This is some ghost-form of him. Harry is a man of light, and laughter, and piercing green eyes, and paint streaked cheekbones. The man in front of Louis now is none of that. The man in front of Louis now is too-thin, his cheeks edging towards the word gaunt rather than rosy, wrists tiny and fragile. There are deep circles under his eyes, and a dullness within them that Louis has never witnessed before. Fucking hell.

“You look like shit,” he spits, and the words are harsh, spoken with intent to hurt, and Harry’s face shuts down instantly, a tick in his jaw being the only acknowledgment of a response. Even that gives Louis a lick of satisfaction.

Good.

Harry apparently deems the comment unworthy of a reply, and instead he settles back into his chair before glancing up and giving a nod to someone behind Louis. Louis instantly tenses, fists curling before Harry is giving a subtle shake of his head towards him, “Wouldn’t do that, if I were you. Scaring the waiter is a surefire way of getting us kicked out before we’re ready.”

Louis stops himself, forcing every instinct in him down, (He won’t let himself think about how easy it was to take Harry’s word for truth.) and a moment later a waiter appears with an unopened bottle of wine. He gives a quick show of flicking off the metal lining around the neck of the bottle before twisting an opener into the cork and pulling it out with a quick tug and pop.

Brilliant. Louis wants none of that shit. The show goes on, the waiter tipping just a bit of the wine into a glass for Harry to swirl, and taste, before giving a nod and accepting a proper glass of the drink, before Louis is being poured one himself. It’s nostalgic, the whole thing. Louis has been to plenty of high end restaurants in which this same dance went on. Harry always picked the wines, took his time smelling, and swirling, and tasting, and mumbling shit about woody undertones or surprising moments of sweetness, and Louis always drank whatever it was Harry eventually settled on. He rarely took enough notice of a difference to complain. (Their first date, he’d tried to seem sophisticated enough to appreciate wine in the same way Harry did, and he’d arrived early to instruct the waiter to give them the best, most expensive wine available. It’d been bloody awful, and two glasses in he’d let himself admit that wine just tastes like wine and he doesn’t have particularly good taste. Good wine is good wine, and bad wine is bad wine. That’s about it. Harry had laughed, shot him a wink, and promised he’d never have to undergo the pressures of choosing a bottle for the two of them again. He’d kept his word well.)

Now, though, Louis doesn’t play along. Instead, as the waiter walks away, he reaches out and snags the man’s sleeve, getting his attention once again.
“I need something stronger than this. Er- Stärker. Hard liquor. Brandy, or vodka. Vodka? Viele. Ich möchte etwas— Ah. Just get me liquor,” Louis’ always been shit with foreign languages, and he’s only half positive he’s connecting the right words. He just can’t drink some wine that Harry took the time to select. He needs something that burns like hell on the way down.

Harry cuts in, assumably translating Louis’ garbled request into german with what sounds like a perfect accent, and Louis is thrown for a loop, for a moment, as he watches it happen. Harry converses with the german waiter like a perfect gentleman, and Louis is forced to remember, all over again: Harry isn’t Harry. This is someone who’s very, very good at hiding in plain sight. Can even pass for a born and raised german if he wants to, apparently. The thought has Louis’ stomach turning over.

“I won’t drink anything unopened,” Louis speaks, as soon as the waiter is gone, and the edge of Harry’s lips quirk upwards.

“I’m a bit offended, you know. That you’d bring back-up and think I wouldn’t have an eye for it, by now. I do know how you work, you know?” The reminder stings, and Harry leans closer, just barely, “Tell the bird with the floral dress and her partner to beat it, eh?”

Louis’ jaw tenses, and he glances at the table two down from their’s, dipping his chin towards the door once he’s made eye contact with the couple of plants he’d sat there. The only two he’d kept within the restaurant once he’d entered. The irritability boiling in his stomach is unavoidable. Idiots. The couple is smart enough to scramble up hastily with Louis’ signal, though, pulling themselves together just long enough to maintain a relaxed presence while exiting the building.

Louis keeps his expression cool, returning his gaze to Harry only once the pair have completely left the building. He gives an unbothered hum, “My apologies for their… Lack of professionalism. They’re new.”

Harry inclines his head, just barely, “Clearly.”

Louis feels a burst of anger before he realizes that Harry’s addressing their unfamiliar faces, rather than their lack of training, and again he forces his anger down. Keep a lid on it, Tomlinson. Harry’d always said his temper was too quick to flare up.

“Why are we here, Har— Matthias?” A near slip up. He won’t give the man the satisfaction. He’d hoped that seeing Harry would make it easier to think of him as Matthias, but it doesn’t. Rather, it makes the name Matthias fit over him even uglier, and somehow that makes Harry’s next comment more frustrating.

“Not Matthias, actually. That was— Julian Léonard. S’my name. My proper name. Real name,” he states. And that…? That fits him better, in an ugly, twisted sense. For no good reason at all, besides intuition, Louis knows he isn’t lying this time.

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m only trying to be honest.”

“Oh, is that something we’re trying, now, Styles?” Louis, all at once, doesn’t give a shit about Harry’s real name. Who he properly, and truly is. He has no intention of giving him the respect of calling him by his proper name. He doesn’t get to escape Harry Styles. He doesn’t get to shed the charade he kept up around Louis like a costume. Louis’ going to throw Harry Styles in the face of “Julian Léonard” for as long as is possible.

“It could be something we try,” Harry muses, and Louis scoffs aloud.

“You sound ludicrous, you know?” he retorts.

Harry answers with a shrug, “Maybe. But it’s- It’s a start.”

“A start towards what?”

Another shrug, and then, “A budding partnership, perhaps. Some weak form of reconciliation.”

Louis loses all sense of control, then, and he laughs. Loudly. Enough to draw the attention of the people sitting at the tables around them, and he doesn’t pause long enough to give a shit, it’s only because he doesn’t care to have anyone eavesdropping that he even bothers to drop the volume of his voice, though the venom still remains, “You’re fucking well joking, aren’t you? A partnership? You’ve gone mad, mate. I’ll give you kudos for keeping me so unaware for this long, though I suppose it makes sense with the shit you’ve been working for years. A trip to the loony bin would do you better than trying to strike a business deal with me you absolute piece of—”

The waiter appears next to Louis, and he cuts himself off with a sharp inhale as a glass is set in front of him, smelling strongly of alcohol, and Louis waves the man off without looking away from Harry, “We aren’t partners, in any sense of the word. Not now, not ever,” he finishes by pushing his glass towards Harry.

Harry understands without Louis having to speak a word, and he lifts the glass to his lips to take a small sip before grimacing, and passing it back. Strong, but free of poison, then. Louis gives a satisfied hum and takes a large drink, relishing its burn.

“You got my… gift, didn’t you?” Harry questions, and Louis quirks a brow. He doesn’t recall receiving any kind of gift from Harry, and he’s quite sure he would remember something of the sort.

“I don’t…” Louis trails off, as realization dawns on him, and yet again a burst of fury cuts through his body, leaving his knuckles white on the table.

“That was you?” he hisses, and for once, emotion crosses over Harry’s face.

Surprise.

“I don’t—” the man’s mask is slipping, just barely, and Louis isn’t sure who he’s looking at, but even he can’t pretend it’s Harry. “You did get it, didn’t you?” His voice is vulnerable, and it makes Louis angrier.

“Bit hard to miss a head on my doorstep, Julian,” he spits. A small slip of the tongue, but Harry flinches as though he’s been hit, and Louis notes the reaction with some surprise. The man’s true name holds power, then. Imagine that. Louis promises himself he’ll only tie ugliness to that name from here on out. It’ll be a weapon made of hate, rather than the gift it may have been intended to be.

“I did you a favor. Common courtesy is to say ‘thank you,’ in case you’ve forgotten,” the entitlement in Julian’s voice is astounding, and it's the rawness entangled with it that attaches itself to Julian. Another glimpse through the mask, and into the mans more honest thoughts. His true self.

Harry, Julian, whoever he was, had thought Louis would be pleased.

He absolutely was not.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right? That was—” Louis works his jaw tightly, “Char was my kill. My mark. You’d have done better delivering him to me with his hands tied to his back and his legs taken off at the knees so he couldn’t run.”

The woman at the next table over stiffens slightly, and Louis straightens up, having been unconsciously leaning over the table, tip of his pointer finger jammed to the table as he spoke, tapping in time with his anger. Julian must recognize the effect they’re having on the rest of the restaurant as well, as he lets his features soften again.

Harry’s back.

It’s odd, the way Louis can see the shift, as Julian flips from character to character. Julian. Harry. German gentleman. It’s impressive, the way he can change into who he wants to be so easily (not that Louis would ever tell him that).

It only serves to ignite Louis’ anger more.

“This was a shit idea,” he decides aloud, and he finishes his drink in one pull and a grimace before he’s pushing back from the table, standing quickly. “I’m done here. We’re done here. Don’t contact me again. And don’t interfere with my business again, or I’ll enjoy doing to you as I had hoped to do to Char, before you stole that, as well.”

“As well?” Harry chirped, and Louis isn’t sure why he bothers asking the question, but he does, and Louis doesn’t mind answering.

“As well as the rest of me that you stole. As well as the hours, and sleep, and safety, and pride, and money, and people you stole from me. You had to take my vengeance as well,” Louis steps by Harry.

“I hate the haircut, by the way. Doesn’t frame your face well at all.”

And he’s gone.

It’s not for another two months that Harry calls him again.

Part one fin.